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Since separating from the AT&T Corporation in 1996, Lucent Technologies, Inc. has become one of the world’s leading designers, developers and manufacturers of communications systems, software and products. A key business imperative for Lucent Technologies is, of course, to keep abreast of its ever more aggressive global competition. The leadership of Lucent strongly believes that the core of its competitive advantage is the up‐to‐date skills, knowledge and commitment of its employees, worldwide. Consequently, the Learning and Performance Centre was created at the inception of the company and has been charged with providing the learning solutions that the individuals and organizations within the company need for success. This article describes the approach that has been adopted to link learning and development to business needs, to deliver learning opportunities where and when they are needed via technology, and to assess the impact of learning programs on business results.

Myopic going concern practice refers to the current audit going concern opinion that a firm is rewarded a favorable going concern opinion as long as it has the capability to satisfy its debt obligation in the following year. We show, via a structural agency problem we develop in the paper, that such a practice has a potential economic cost to the firm. We study Lucent Technologies Inc. in detail for its loss in economic value and also measure the magnitude of this impact with 500 companies. We find that Lucent should have lost its going concern status in 2002 as it had to sell off its assets to meet debt obligations and nearly 18% of the 500 firms suffer some degree of economic loss due to the agency problem.

The purpose of this paper is to show how contingent claim valuation and, more precisely, structural models, can be used to value the debt and the equity of a corporation. The objective is to provide a general and unified valuation framework.

A discrete version of the Geske model in a binomial‐like environment is implemented. To make the analysis more applied, real data of a corporation – Lucent Technologies, Inc. are used – and the valuation is attempted.

Structural models can be used as a practical valuation tool. The results that are obtained are close to market data. Additionally, the authors are able to determine the price of some non‐traded claims (debt).

While the more direct implication is that structural models can be used as a practical valuation tool, more applied research is needed to better calibrate the models.

To the applied finance literature is contributed by presenting a way of estimating the value of corporate debt and equity by calibrating a discrete version of Geske model. It is believed that this approach is not only interesting from the academic point of view, but can also serve as a useful tool for practitioners.

This paper introduces a new mathematical model for analyzing the economic benefits of incorporating the fourth party logistics (4PL), which is a contractor (i.e. agent) for the supply chain coordination and construction based on the division of community and the outsourcing development. Based on the physical theory and the wave-particle duality, a supply chain is the special organization whose characteristic has wave-particle duality. The mathematical model enriches the connotation of 4PL and it broadens the thought for 4PL development. Secondly, the proposed mathematical model predicated on transaction costs, is supported by Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) and acts as the theoretical analysis tool of 4PL for coordinating 3-party generic supply chain. Through the model, some trendy conclusions can be drawn to provide theoretical support for 4PL’s practices. Finally, a case illustrates our conclusions.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

How does university-firm collaboration affect the performance of both universities and firms? The purpose of this paper is to evaluate university-firm collaborations aimed at expanding the treatment effects of collaboration ambition on university academic performance as well as collaboration ambition focused on the firm’s production of innovation and financial performance for the top 110 US universities and the top 200 US R&D performing firms.

“Two studies, based on the three archival data sets (National Bureau of Economic Research-Rensselaer Scientific Papers Database and the Harvard Dataverse Network (DVN) US Patent Citations database and Compustat database), are undertaken in the top 110 US universities and the top 200 US R&D performing firms.” The study introduces a theoretical model that explicitly addresses collaboration diversity, number of collaborations, knowledge stock and the endogeneity problem that is generated by self-selection of collaboration ambition in university and firm’s performance.

The results suggest that the effects of adopting proactive collaboration decision on academic performance are insignificant in the firm subsample. However, more interestingly, the authors find supporting evidence of the negative impact of collaboration on university groups. The authors also find that collaboration diversity, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition lead to stronger firm performance but the number of collaborations is smaller on firm performance. Furthermore, the authors find that collaboration ambition moderates the positive effect of the number of collaborations on firm performance.

University-firm collaboration is a multifaceted relationship, suggesting that the empirical analysis can be interpreted through the university and the firm view to enhance the understanding of the collaboration for performance creation. This study articulates the positive role of collaboration diversity, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition and the negative role of the number of collaborations on university-firm collaboration in terms of university and firm performance. Moreover, proactive collaboration ambition has the positive effect of a higher number of collaborations on firm performance. The authors conclude that policy should refrain from overly focusing on collaboration diversity, number of collaborations, knowledge stock and collaboration ambition, and the authors consider the interactions between the number of collaborations and collaboration ambition on university-firm collaboration when discussing their effects on mutual performance.

This study demonstrates the effects of university-firm collaboration on academic performance. In addition, the authors discuss the factors that influence collaboration to help the firm to increase its innovation and financial performance. Therefore, it would be interesting to see simultaneously how university-firm collaboration affects the performance of both partners.

Conventional wisdom dictates that if you represent a corporate entity (or even a senior corporate official) involved in a securities or other regulatory investigation ‐ whether by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Commodities Futures Trading Commission, New York Stock Exchange, National Association of Securities Dealers or one or more of the state attorneys general or other federal or state regulators ‐ it is important to cooperate fully in the investigation, even if that means “confessing” to corporate wrongdoing. Indeed, there are many benefits to cooperation, such as potentially avoiding criminal prosecution or an enforcement proceeding altogether or negotiating reduced penalties. And for regulated industries or regulated entities, there may be no choice but to provide full cooperation in order to avoid making an enemy of your regulator. But there are important potential pitfalls as well to cooperating with governmental or self‐regulatory investigations ‐ pitfalls that sometimes outweigh the benefits of cooperation. These potential pitfalls include bringing problems to the government’s attention about which it might not learn otherwise, or strengthening the government’s case against your client by doing the regulators’ work for them, such as by marshalling the evidence against your client for use by the regulators. And more and more, regulators are requiring entities to waive the protections of the attorney‐client privilege and work‐product doctrine as one of the prices you need to pay to be treated as a cooperator. If a regulatory authority insists on a privilege waiver, any documents turned over to the agency also may be available to potential third‐party litigants, such as the class‐action bar, or other government entities. In fact, the regulatory agency itself may use the formerly privileged materials to support a complaint against your client. Because of these potential pitfalls, the cooperation road may resemble a minefield at times, with the client one wrong step away from disaster. For that reason, it is critical for counsel to avoid reflexively choosing to cooperate in a regulatory investigation aimed at his or her client. Although cooperation may turn out to be the right approach to many regulatory investigations, each situation must be analyzed based upon its own individual facts so that the benefits of cooperation can be balanced appropriately against the pitfalls before making an informed decision as to what is best for the client in any particular circumstance.